Nuffnang Ads

Thursday, November 15, 2007

I was at Linus' Filmmaking Workshop on Monday nite at Swinburne University. Well, I took it more as a meet-the-director kind of session instead of a technical one. He was back in Kuching to promote his new feature film A Note of Love which was screened in town lately.

I knew Linus back in those days when he was just venturing into a career in filmmaking. At that time, he was just randomly shooting videos left & right making short Jackie-Chan-inspired kung fu stunt flicks.

But he also made a notable stop-motion animation about a frog, one of his greatest fetishes.

Surprisingly, the little film travelled well to several film festivals around the globe. This frog could really jump.

Based in KL, he has since been involved in countless projects which led him to a little feature called Whispers of My Heart & an acting stint as Ah Keong in Yasmin Ahmad's Sepet.

By the way, he is a 100% mata sepet. Sometimes I wonder how he can see so much more than we can visually.

Anyway, so he was talking about his latest feature A Note of Love, which was a 100% locally shot film with 100% local crew & 100 local cast & 100% local funding in 100% local language (Bahasa Malaysia, English & Hokkien). So it was a 500% locally made film. But strangely enough, it was not accepted as a Malaysian film as it was not 80% Malay (I'm not sure what that means), & therefore not qualifying for the one-week Compulsory Screening at local participating cinemas.

And you will find it interesting to know that there was only one scene cut from the whole film. This is the scene where the little cheeky boy was squeezing the huge brightly coloured bras which was hanging out to dry.

I think this was too ecstatic for the censors.

Linus Chung has come a long way to reach where he is now, and the good news is that there is still so much more to expect from this little guy. Somehow, he always knew what he wanted to do, and despite all the odds, he pulled it through.

When I was young, I heard the story of The Little Engine That Could. Now thinking back, I can't help but associate Linus with that little train.

This is a quick post to let you know that Al-Jazeera will be screening a discussion forum tonite on Astro Channel 513 at 10.30pm. Nazri Aziz (Minister in the Prime Minister's Dept) & Khairy Jamaluddin (the Scary Son-in-law of the Prime Minister) will be on. Our Minister ofMis-Information Zam-zam Alakazam was also invited but he declined because he scared oredi and wants to go home to his kampung to tanam jagung.

Judging from the recent BERSIH rally, it is very likely that Al-Jazeera will be shooting very interesting questions. It will also be equally interesting to see Nazri & Khairy dodging bullets.

Khairy dodging Al-Jazeera bullets from the right.

Nazri Aziz also dodging Al-Jazeera bullets from the left.

Here's something for you to think about before you watch Al-Jazeera tonite. I trust you can put the pieces together:

“Don’t be like monkeys (beruk) on streets. This (the People's Rally) is an illegal gathering by an illegal organisation (BERSIH). If you want to fight, fight in the real ring like a man. At the general elections, we (Umno Youth) will fight and we will win!"

And here's Khairy at his most primate behaviour again when he stormed the Convention Centre that hosted the Asean Regional Forum against the visit of US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice to Malaysia(Photo courtesy of Screenshots)

Sunday, November 11, 2007

The biggest thing ever in the history of Malaysia on Saturday was not this.

Malaysia's world's longest pizza.

Nor this.

Malaysia's world's largest pencil.

Nope. Not this either.

Malaysia's world's tallest flagpole.

Nada yada nada. Malaysia's world's tallest twin peaks.

Instead, it was this.

In fact, it was so big that Ah Lien thought there was a Mega Sales Carnival going on. Panicking, she nearly booked an Air Asia flight to KL.

But fortunately for her, she didn't. Because it was just a bunch of people marching to hand a petition to the King of Malaysia. But it was no small bunch. It was a more than 40,000 people kinda bunch. But the newspapers reported it as 4,000 only. The extra zero dropped into the drain somewhere.

See the yellow people getting sprayed with chemicals & tear gas here.

Prior to this, just a few days ago, the Umno assembly seemed impervious to all this rally buildup. They were occupied with more important issues such as sexy Air Asia stewardesses and the amount of cloth used to make their skirts.

And when the Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin was interviewed about the Bersih rally on Al-Jazeera, he threw a tantrum. Hear his mad foaming ranting here.

Then again, I don't think we understood a single word he said. Kenny Sia has the transcript here. I don't think it helps much as he's still not making much sense even with the transcript. I can't help it but he just reminds me of Porky Pig. It's just plain Looney.

More interesting photos & reports of the rally are available at Screenshots.

I used to be a horror fan and I've always found Hollywood horror films to be mild in those days. You could hit me with anything, & I could take it & was proud of it. Hollywood horror was for sissy boys. They were for babies.

See, even the main actress is a baby. How more baby-ish can you get?

But of course there is one exception lah. The Exorcist scared the sh*t out of me. Until today I'd still feel uncomfortable about posting Linda Blair's head-turning picture here. I took it out of this post cos everytime I came in, she was staring at me & sh*t came out of me.

Anyway much later on, when the Japanese horror films came onto the scene, I almost peed in my pants. And then when Korean horror hit the cinemas, I peed again. Since then, I am just fascinated by the kind of horror films that have come out from South Korea for a long time now. Looking back, it just confirms their paranoia about everything.

K-horror has put fear into almost every imaginable situation possible.

If your phone rings, you'd better answer it. One missed call is all you need.

'Aiya! Got missed call! Die liao!'

So in South Korea, people don't dare to do a lot of things.

They don't dare to hold hands when climbing the stairs. Got ghost in the middle.

They don't dare to go to school. Got ghost oso.

Don't dare to take the train. The ghost will come to check your tickets.

Got ghost in the shoe. And they smell.

Got ghost in the Cello case.

Got ghost in the bathtub.

Got ghost in the hair - can see behind.(Lidat can make a very good school teacher)

Got ghost in plastic bag.

But I think compared to J-horror, the Korean films seem to be more paranoid. Of course, if you're living next to a neighbour like Kim Jong Il, who wouldn't be?